He's Not Afraid || L.S AU

Chapter 8

Louis' POV

"Where were you yesterday? You came in this morning" Niall asks beside me on the wooden bench in P.E, our back leaning against the wall.

"I have my reasons" I reply, watching as the guys jump, sprint and shout while the girls make no effort in participating in the sport; basketball.

"Wanna share those reasons with me?" Niall takes his back off the wall and puts both his elbows on his knees, his hands clasps together and turns to me.

"No, I'm fine" I say, my eyes still trained on the guys playing.

Me and another guy that's now currently playingon the dingy old floorboards, has been benched, the coach says that there is an odd amount of males on the team but I and him know nobody wants us. We were forced to go to the girl's until Niall pretended to twist his ankle by him falling on the floor terribly unrealistic. My assumption is that the coach knows the fake injury, however, he doesn't bother telling Niall off as it is pathetically pointless.

"Niall, why aren't you out there? You love P.E" I try to swerve the displeasing subject around.

"Yeah, but you're stuck here so.." Niall trails off, his eyes widening, gaze at the back of me. I swivel around, my own pupils widening as the sound of the double doors opening then closing simultaneously.

"Well shit, mate" Niall swears under his breath but I can still hear him. "Nobody likes a foul mouth Niall" I scold him making him grin mischievously "It's cute that you don't cuss"

I blush, not caused by the comment but by the word cute. The last time I heard that word was when Harry Styles aquaitended me on Saturday with my younger sister Fizzy. I still don't know what made him compliment me and stutter like, well..me. 

"If I had a controller to manual you to mute that mouth of yours, I would've done that a while ago" I shoot back making him chuckle at my statement.

"Why is Harry Styles in here?" Niall asks "That's irrelevant to our conversation," "Why is Harry Styles in here?" Niall repeats "Correction. Why is he coming towards us?" I ask, panick taking over my system as I see Harry talking to the coach with hand gestures which I don't think he realises he's doing at the moment.

"Lou, calm down" Niall tells me, placing his hand on my shoulder to probably calm me. "Wait, is he the reason why you skipped half the day yesterday?" Niall comes to a realisation. I nod, taking my eyes off Harry.

"Niall, you have football practice, remember? Zayn is going fucking mental right now so if you don't hurry up he will bloody lose his shit" Harry stalks over to our direction, telling Niall.

His focus is only on Niall. Not that I like attention but he won't even look at me. Not even a quick glance. A powerful sting hits my chest, coming to a conclusion that Harry is ignoring me from my irrational outburst yesterday. Then guilt washes over me and a ball is clogging up my throat. The ball is the heavy guilt. Just looking at him, his posture poorly slouched, his tousled hair in a bandana, football uniform red instead of blue, like mine, muddy, dirty football boots lightly trailing his footsteps to the door and his destination and oh gosh he's going to make me melt.

"Oh shit, yeah okay. I'll be there, hold on" Niall stands up, patting my shoulder lightly and gets his water bottle from underneath the bench. "I'll see you later, okay Lou?" he pats my back lightly as we embrace. I spot Harry standing awkwardly, with his head down.

"Yeah, have fun Nialler" I tell, letting go of him and see them slip out my sight and behind the double doors, leaving me in my previous position on the bench. If Harry's ignoring me, heck he is ignoring me but what will happen this evening for dinner? I've just got a undeniable death wish I didn't even ask for.